A memo written by the Democratic minority of the House Intelligence Committee, released Saturday with the approval of the FBI and Department of Justice, disputes the narrative put forth in the memo released February 2 by the supposedly-recused Republican chairman of the committee, Representative Devin Nunes.

The rebuttal memo primarily deals with the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant and two extensions that the Department of Justice obtained on Carter Page, foreign policy advisor to the Trump campaign. The Nunes memo asserted that the FBI and Department of Justice improperly obtained the FISA warrant by using information contained in the report of a British citizen working for an American company hired by individuals politically aligned with Hillary Clinton.

Page was already known to investigators before he joined the Trump campaign, due to several instances of Russian operatives attempting to recruit Page to spy for the Russian government.

An important passage in the rebuttal memo explains that by September 2016,

“... the FBI had already opened sub-inquiries into [redacted] individuals linked to the Trump campaign: [redacted] and former campaign foreign policy advisor Carter Page. As Committee testimony bears out, the FBI would have continued its investigation, including against [redacted] individuals, even if it had never received information from Steele, never applied for a FISA warrant against Page, or if the FISC had rejected the application.”

Footnote 7 in the memo reveals what is likely the list of Trump campaign officials who were, as of September 2016, under investigation by the FBI. mo makes clear that five members of the Trump campaign were under investigation by the FBI for being probable agents of the Russian government:

Foreign Policy advisor Carter Page

Campaign advisor Michael Flynn, who was considered as a vice presidential running mate, then became National Security Advisor briefly, before resigning or being fired in February 2017

Foreign policy advisory panel member George Papadopoulos

Campaign manager Paul Manafort

Deputy campaign manager Rick Gates.

To understand how this information fits into the picture of what we now know about the Trump campaign and possible interference by Russia in the election, it is necessary to go back to the confusing months around the 2016 election and look at the timeline.

July 5, 2016: FBI Director James Comey held a press conference at which he announced that the investigation into Hillary Clinton was closed and they would not press charges. In Comey’s words: “I am going to include more detail about our process than I ordinarily would, because I think the American people deserve those details in a case of intense public interest.”

September 2016: Five high-level members of the Trump campaign were under investigation by the FBI for being possible Russian agents.

October 28, 2016: FBI Director James Comey sent a letter to Congressional committee head stating that the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s misuse of a private email server was reopened less than two weeks before the election. The FBI had found Clinton emails on a laptop computer involved in the criminal investigation into Anthony Weiner, husband of Clinton’s aide.

Also October 28, 2016: Rep. Jason Chaffetz, head of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, sends a message on Twitter announcing the reopening of the investigation:

“FBI Dir just informed me, ‘The FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation.’ Case reopened”

The Comey letter was released on Twitter 19 minutes later by Fox News analyst Brit Hume.

October 31, 2016: The New York Times published an article by Eric Lichtblau and Steven Lee Myers entitled, “Investigating Donald Trump, F.B.I. Sees No Clear Link to Russia.” That article describes some of the frustration of Democrats like Senator Harry Reid, who expressed his concern to the FBI in a letter released the day before the article was published:

​“It has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisers, and the Russian government — a foreign interest openly hostile to the United States, which Trump praises at every opportunity. The public has a right to know this information.”​

Also October 31, 2016: The day that article appeared, an article by David Corn was published in Mother Jones that should have gotten more attention, but was overshadowed by the Times article. This article was titled, “A Veteran Spy Has Given the FBI Information Alleging a Russian Operation to Cultivate Donald Trump.” (This information was compiled into what has become known as the Steele Dossier.)

Clearly, there was evidence in October 2016 that the Trump campaign needed to be investigated, and was in fact under investigation.

November 6, 2016: The reopened investigation into Clinton’s emails is closed two days before the election.

November 8, 2016: Donald Trump wins the presidency by securing more electoral votes than Hillary Clinton.

I have some questions:

Why did the FBI tell the American people about the Clinton investigation, but not about the investigation into high-level Trump campaign officials?

Why did the FBI find Clinton emails, which turned out to be copies of emails the FBI had already seen, end up on Anthony Weiner’s laptop?

Why did Jason Chaffetz announce on Twitter that the investigation into Clinton was reopened?

The Republican National Convention, held July 18 to 21, 2016 in Cleveland, Ohio, was a spectacle. On display was over-the-top partisan behavior that was shocking in its brazenness and intensity.

One thing stood out for me as I watched in horror 19 months ago: Michael Flynn, retired U.S. Army general criticized Hillary Clinton, suggested that she should resign from the campaign, accused her of unspecified crimes, and whipped the crowd into a frenzy chanting, “Lock Her Up.” That was all stunning to observe; the part that stood out for me, however, was this line:

“I use hashtag Never Hillary,” Flynn, 58 years old at the time, said.

Why would Trump supporters want to know what hashtag Flynn used? Why was Flynn using a hashtag? What did this mean?

I know a lot more now than I knew at the time about how social media can be used to push propaganda. The indictment released Friday in the special counsel’s investigation into Russian interference in the presidential campaign may provide an answer to the questions that have haunted me since that disturbing day in 2016.

On page 20 of the indictment, a table provides information about political advertising bought by the defendants, Russian nationals, who used “fictitious U.S. personas created and used by the ORGANIZATION on social media.” (from page 19) An advertisement was purchased June 30, 2016, with this content:

An ad was purchased by at least one persona account created in Saint Petersburg, and three weeks later Michael Flynn pushed the hashtag out at the Republican National Convention.

Why might he have done this?

At the time I heard him say it, I wondered how many Trump supporters were following Flynn on Twitter or Facebook. Maybe, I thought, the Trump campaign and the GOP had harnessed the power of social media and turned angry white voters in the Midwest and coal country into tech-savvy influencers. Somehow, that did not seem reasonable to me. (That is the story Brad Parscale and Jared Kushner, self-styled data geniuses of the Trump campaign, told to numerous reporters in the months after their team's surprise win.)

There is another reason to signal the use of a hashtag from the podium of a worldwide-televised event. When Flynn announced that hashtag, he may have been signalling cells of paid troll warriors, in Russia, the U.S., and other places, to head to that hashtag to connect with newly created propaganda - memes, ads, and talking points - to push in the coming days and weeks.

I did a search to see what kind of content was attached to this hashtag when Flynn promoted it at the RNC. Any content that has since been deleted would not show up in an advanced search, but the content I did find was very interesting. I cannot definitively say that all the content was created by paid professionals working on the Russian operation, but it looks like much of it may have been.

It is important to note that the memes created were designed to appeal to potential voters who did not want to vote Clinton. The Russian information war was “primarily intended to communicate derogatory information about Hillary Clinton, to denigrate other candidates such as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and to support Bernie Sanders and then-candidate Donald Trump.” (from page 17 of the indictment).

The #GameofThrones hashtag is used, possibly to bring in people who were fans of the television show who might not otherwise be interested. One post uses the hashtag #Milo in combination with #NeverHillary. Another post links to Prison Planet, sending interested content-pushers to wingnut conspiracists Alex Jones, Paul Joseph Watson, and InfoWars. This would help the paid trolls, Russian and American, find the content Flynn (or those directing him) wanted them to push.

Did Michael Flynn knowingly push a hashtag created under fraudulent circumstances in a U.S. election, which would be a violation of federal election law? I don’t know, but I would bet that the special counsel’s team does.

A link to the 37-page indictment of 13 Russian nationals and three Russian companies (with numerous shell companies created to hide fraudulent personas and ad buys) can be found here.https://www.justice.gov/file/1035477/download

An article in USA Today from August 2016 highlighted some of the issues involved when retired military leaders speak out politically. In the article former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey, a four-star Army general, explains that running for office, like Dwight Eisenhower did after a military career, is different from advocating for a particular side in a political contest:

"'If they choose to run themselves, they become accountable to voters,' he wrote in Defense One, a website that focuses on defense and national security trends. 'In simply advocating — or giving speeches — they are not.'"

Not accountable to American voters, but perhaps accountable to his handlers in the Kremlin?

​A selection of available content from Twitter using the hashtag #NeverHillary during the period of the Republican National Convention is included below.

Note the nonstandard plural spelling - "commys" instead of "commies" - that may be a sign of foreign-created content. Also, this may be an early use of the word "libtard." which was popular among harassing trolls during and after the campaign.

This meme accuses Clinton of wanting to build a wall. This may be an example of a paid content creator who got the messages mixed up.

#FreeMilo - perhaps mixing up Julian Assange, currently hiding out in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to avoid charges, with Milo Yiannopoulos, alt-right provocateur?

Criticism of Clinton's hair has been a theme of critics since the 1990s.

The anti-fracking message is designed to appeal to left-leaning voters and encourage them to vote against Clinton. They would never be swayed to vote for Trump, but convincing people to vote for Sanders, Johnson, or Stein, or to simply stay home, became a very common theme by November.

Representative Devin Nunes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has been recused from the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and interactions between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. Nevertheless, he seems to have inserted himself several times into the Trump White House attempt to interfere in the Congressional investigation.

An article in Newsweek, released today, may explain some of his behavior. Nunes seems to have developed an admiration for Flynn. In a December, 2016 interview with the author of the article, Jeff Stein, Nunes expressed his admiration for the general:​“This guy was one of the best intelligence officers in several generations … I don't know if you've ever met him, but Flynn is extremely smart. He really is top notch.”

Nunes attended a breakfast meeting in January 2017, the day before the Inauguration, that Michael Flynn, then the incoming national security adviser, and Mevlut Cavusoglu, the Turkish foreign minister, also attended.

Three members of the Trump transition team - Michael, Flynn, Steve Bannon, and Jared Kushner - met January 5, 2017 with Jordan’s King Abdullah II at the Four Seasons Hotel in Manhattan. At the time, soon-to-be national Security Advisor Flynn was promoting a $400 billion deal to build nuclear reactors in the Middle East, including Jordan.

According to Buzzfeed, they greeted the king at the hotel and then took off with him in a fleet of SUVs for an undisclosed location.

This part of the article is particularly interesting:

“People close to the three Trump advisers say that the nuclear deal was not discussed. But a federal official with access to a document created by a law enforcement agency about the meeting said that the nuclear proposal, known as the Marshall Plan, was one of the topics the group talked about.”

This means that the group was under surveillance by U.S. law enforcement at the time of the meeting.

The plan included using a Russian firm currently under U.S. sanctions to run security at the plants.